a random map idea

[dbldrew]

ok the one problem with TLD is once you learn the maps the game becomes very easy.. I know exactly where to go in game to find resources.

So I was thinking that it would be cool to make a map that had completely random spawns of buildings, dead animals, bodies etc.. 

So the map itself can be the same so the mountains, streams, lakes etc are all the same. But could be hundreds of flat spawn areas. like there is a 10'x20' flat area built into the maps and there can be a random cabin, or maybe a dead deer, or just a pine of rocks, or tree, or pile of snow, tree with moss.. etc so as soon as the map loads you have no idea where the resources are, it will make exploring the map fun again. 

that way you can play the map 100s of times and every time it is different.

the devs can even built in a default spawn that is always the same for those who want to learn the map and have it the same every time. but then a setting to change to make it "random" for some needed variety 

 

 

 

[Warg]

+1 very very nice. I'm all for the randomness of safe places and need for exploration. No more: get to the railway, follow it to the Dam, kill Fluffy, loot every bolt in the dam, get the rifle, all set...

 

And, if this works, stage 2: completely random regions (hills, rivers, gorges) with one built cabin somewhere there and almost no human intervention.

 

[ArcherAC3]

Yup. Sandbox is almost getting linear. Though there are always surprises which may make me change my route or think about something different to survive, the goals and the places to go are always the same. This line, by Warg, perfectly exemplifies it "get to the railway, follow it to the Dam, kill Fluffy, loot every bolt in the dam, get the rifle, all set".

[miah999]

I'm not against this idea at all, but two things stand in the way...

1: The maps in TLD are bespoke handmade affairs, that do not lend themselves to random assembly, or procedural generation. Entirely new map system would be needed.

2: The sandbox was and still is not Hinterland's primary goal, the time and effort necessary to make a random map system does not support their primary narrative focus.

I'm not saying that this is a bad idea, but don't get your hopes up.

[Doc Gonzo]

dbldrew,

Not long ago Raphael van Lierop had some interesting, and specific, thoughts about the future of the game after modding is introduced and how that might effect the introduction of player made maps.  In short, there's hope!

http://hinterlandforums.com/index.php?/topic/10334-the-long-dark-roadmap-first-impressions/&page=4#comment-62080

v/r

DG

[dbldrew]

12 hours ago, miah999 said:

I'm not against this idea at all, but two things stand in the way...

1: The maps in TLD are bespoke handmade affairs, that do not lend themselves to random assembly, or procedural generation. Entirely new map system would be needed.

2: The sandbox was and still is not Hinterland's primary goal, the time and effort necessary to make a random map system does not support their primary narrative focus.

I'm not saying that this is a bad idea, but don't get your hopes up.

not really, they currently have randomness built into it as it is.. some of the non permanent houses spawn as a house and sometimes spawn as a burned out shell of a house. I'm suggesting that rather then just have 3-4 houses that might be there or might be burned, instead make 100s of spawn areas for everything and most of the time the spawn area will just spawn snow.. or rocks. etc 

It can be set up that the map will only spawn say 2 large houses randomly on the map, and maybe 4-5 smaller cabins, and then other random resources and then the remainder will just spawn a snow pile or rocks or trees (so it doesn't look weird having a perfectly square flat spots all over the map) 

you could play something like that 1000s of times and it will be different every time

[Pillock]

1 hour ago, dbldrew said:

It can be set up that the map will only spawn say 2 large houses randomly on the map, and maybe 4-5 smaller cabins, and then other random resources and then the remainder will just spawn a snow pile or rocks or trees

It's a good idea in principle. But it might make some of the maps feel a bit... weird.

What if the Pleasant Valley farmhouse spawned up in the mountains, with barn over on the opposite side of the map next to some isolated bear cave? And the fields where the farm should be had the radio tower there instead?

Or the gas station on Coastal Highway spawned on jackrabbit island? 

The point is, the maps we have are custom made by skilled map designers to feel like real places, and when you start letting a computer decide where to put things, that real world authenticity inevitably suffers.

It would probably make for more efficient use of development time, instead of designing and implementing and refining a system to generate randomised locations in a believable and immersive way, to just spend that time making more maps. That, and perhaps reducing and randomising loot spawns to a higher degree across the existing locations we have now.

[dbldrew]

2 minutes ago, Pillock said:

It's a good idea in principle. But it might make some of the maps feel a bit... weird.

What if the Pleasant Valley farmhouse spawned up in the mountains, with barn over on the opposite side of the map next to some isolated bear cave? And the fields where the farm should be had the radio tower there instead?

Or the gas station on Coastal Highway spawned on jackrabbit island? 

The point is, the maps we have are custom made by skilled map designers to feel like real places, and when you start letting a computer decide where to put things, that real world authenticity inevitably suffers.

It would probably make for more efficient use of development time, instead of designing and implementing and refining a system to generate randomised locations in a believable and immersive way, to just spend that time making more maps. That, and perhaps reducing and randomising loot spawns to a higher degree across the existing locations we have now.

yeah I was thinking more for new maps going forward or maybe only 1 or 2 new ones not to remake the old maps.. although if they added in more randomness  to the old ones that would help. But yes having the Farmhouse or gas station spawn in some random spot wouldn't work

[ShawnB]

While random maps might not be feasible, all shelters should be randomly generated, like the current mechanic they already have in game, just applied to everything. And building clusters instead of individual buildings. Shelters are the most important feature in game and would have the most significant impact on gameplay. 

Ya it would suck to not have a trappers cabin to set up in if it happened to be a burnt down structure instead. But it would force me to spend more time in others areas, and appreciate all the other amazing places in this game.

[cekivi]

Procedural generation would be a great feature to add. It'd just be hard to do well

The random burned out buildings are a great start though. It gives each game a unique feel.

[Wastelander]

3 hours ago, cekivi said:

It'd just be hard to do well

This.

The idea is good but good random maps are hard to pull of as they tend to get stale after a while - even mods couldn't really fix this for me in Minecraft. Personally, I'd much prefer user-made maps and more Hinterland-handcrafted maps. They're beautiful and do their job just right.

Now, if someone came up with a way to make random maps not become stale after a while, then it's another story...

[dbldrew]

On 7/22/2016 at 3:12 AM, Wastelander said:

This.

The idea is good but good random maps are hard to pull of as they tend to get stale after a while - even mods couldn't really fix this for me in Minecraft. Personally, I'd much prefer user-made maps and more Hinterland-handcrafted maps. They're beautiful and do their job just right.

Now, if someone came up with a way to make random maps not become stale after a while, then it's another story...

the problem is the maps how they are now are already stale. this game is a resource finding game.. and once you know exactly where all the recourses are the game becomes stale. Im fine with user created maps. that sounds cool. but how will that work for those on the xbox? 

[Wastelander]

6 hours ago, dbldrew said:

the problem is the maps how they are now are already stale. this game is a resource finding game.. and once you know exactly where all the recourses are the game becomes stale. Im fine with user created maps. that sounds cool. but how will that work for those on the xbox? 

As far as I am informed, Xbox has mod support so the same map files could easily be uploaded to the xbox. Might need an xbox-player to confirm this though.

[dbldrew]

5 hours ago, Wastelander said:

As far as I am informed, Xbox has mod support so the same map files could easily be uploaded to the xbox. Might need an xbox-player to confirm this though.

the problem is that Xbox has a lengthy verification process for any updates that will go live on xbox for downloading. so the availability of user created maps are pretty much non existent for every game out there

[dbldrew]

Bump

 

[ThatDearGuy]

I like that some content is already randomly generated, like houses and loot bunkers, but I think the true sense of exploration was lost on me a while ago. Procedural generation lately hasn't been working out particularly well for games that sported it as one of their main features. Still, I believe it can be done right. So long as the final release of TLD does not promote this as its main feature, there should be no need for the media or anyone sceptical of procedural generation to get particularly upset about it in the event it didnt 1000% work out to their exact anticipations.

"Hey, here's this cool game with a story mode. Oh and if you ever get bored of that, here's some randomly generated content too." :T

[ArmagedDan]

On 7/21/2016 at 6:27 PM, Pillock said:

It's a good idea in principle. But it might make some of the maps feel a bit... weird.

What if the Pleasant Valley farmhouse spawned up in the mountains, with barn over on the opposite side of the map next to some isolated bear cave? And the fields where the farm should be had the radio tower there instead?

Or the gas station on Coastal Highway spawned on jackrabbit island? 

The point is, the maps we have are custom made by skilled map designers to feel like real places, and when you start letting a computer decide where to put things, that real world authenticity inevitably suffers.

It would probably make for more efficient use of development time, instead of designing and implementing and refining a system to generate randomised locations in a believable and immersive way, to just spend that time making more maps. That, and perhaps reducing and randomising loot spawns to a higher degree across the existing locations we have now.

I think this concern could be addressed easily.  I also think procedural generation is not the answer - not in as lovingly built a game as this.  (Procedural generation always felt kinda cold to me, and not cold in the "dying in the snow while a wolf chews on your head" way that we're all here for )

 

The answer, I think, is to not have things be completely random.  Say the overall pastiche is wooded hills, and you have one particular "node" that a road goes past.  There's a chance of it spawning a small cluster of hunting cabins, or a dilapidated shed, or a country home, or a rock formation.  Say the road goes past what is clearly a Desolation-Point-Style industrial park.  A node there might spawn a cluster of trailers, or a radio tower and control hut, or a mine entrance, or just a few stacks of pallets.  Out in the woods, a node might spawn a hunting cabin, a rock formation, or a cluster of trees with some saplings.

 

Enough to keep the map fairly fresh on replay, while the individual elements make sense in play.  The downside is that it would be a single map that would require the work of at least two, so it's a question of Hinterland having the inclination and resources.

[Pillock]

Sounds good to me - as long as, like you say, they could dedicate the resources to do it well.

[Ice Hole]

The notion of random wilderness occurred to me while trudging along the wall. 

You know what wall I am referring.

Every where there is wall. 

Boundary for the game map is the technical reason.

Hoping someday the map will be completely open.  And the appropriate clambour  mechanic added.

So a random map zone can be generated once beyond the wall.

Keep the zone, once explored, persistent so travel into the region is repeatable for that particular game save.

Then alternate routes between other maps might be possible.

Although much more deadlier and filled with peril.

Having plenty of dead ends to enhance the feeling of discovering a short cut.

 

 

[dbldrew]

minecraft has sold over 100 million copies of the game. they are currently selling about 50,000 copies per day. its pretty much all my kids play and I have a copy of the game on pretty much every device in my house. They use randomly generated maps.. just some food for thought.

the whole game doesnt have to go random. they just have to make 1 map option that is random and then you have 1000s and 1000s of map variation 

[cekivi]

The difficulty with a true random map though is that it'd lose a lot of the narrative feel that the game currently has. For instance, there wouldn't be burned out houses with armed corpses in front of them anymore. Or if there was it'd become so common as to lose all meaning. 

I'm content to wait for modded maps. There's a lot of opportunity to explore a lot of places in the Long Dark and personally I would prefer a crafted experience.

But, like I said earlier, some random elements in the game are really nice.

[dbldrew]

5 hours ago, cekivi said:

The difficulty with a true random map though is that it'd lose a lot of the narrative feel that the game currently has. For instance, there wouldn't be burned out houses with armed corpses in front of them anymore. Or if there was it'd become so common as to lose all meaning. 

I'm content to wait for modded maps. There's a lot of opportunity to explore a lot of places in the Long Dark and personally I would prefer a crafted experience.

But, like I said earlier, some random elements in the game are really nice.

so dont play that map then.. not asking for every map to be random just 1. and the easiest way to avoid the problems you have is to have only so many dead bodies spawn, and only have a few houses spawn. etc its just that there will be 100s of spawn points that can spawn up to say like 5 dead bodys, 1 lg house, 5 small houses etc once you go through all of the list of things to spawn the rest of the remaining spawn points will fill in with snow, trees rocks etc. all this does is make it so every time you play the map you will need to explore 100% of it. Right now once you know the maps you know what areas to hit to find resources. there is no real exploration anymore.

[InsaneWithAnger]

Most of the game is about exploration, so more map variety would boost the replay value of the game immeasurably. The trick is to make a random map generator that is both good for gameplay and has narrative realism. I believe this is possible, but it might be more achievable in a separately paid-for expansion pack. 

One of the chief benefits of random map generation is that it makes survival much more compelling for veterans. It also allows long-term survival to be much more rewarding, since exploration would be rewarded when you find optimal regions to survive in (e.g. Two rabbit fields next to a shack with a workbench). But players would have to constantly explore to find specific non-renewable resources, which would make the game more suspenseful since the most dire circumstances can arise when you explore regions in which you have no familiarity. Random map design would add both suspense of the unknown and reward for players who find key resources on their travels. 

Personally, I would pay the price of a whole extra game to enjoy a well-crafted map generated sandbox. I know that making one would be a huge design challenge, so I think the additional cost would be justified. 

[togg]

On 14/12/2016 at 4:46 AM, dbldrew said:

so dont play that map then..

Oh man I was going to answer, then I noticed you're the same person than the one that would like more action in wolf fights

No offense but you seems to dislike *everything* they've tried to do in TLD! You ask for a completelly different game.

[dbldrew]

4 hours ago, togg said:

Oh man I was going to answer, then I noticed you're the same person than the one that would like more action in wolf fights

No offense but you seems to dislike *everything* they've tried to do in TLD! You ask for a completelly different game.

Yes I do want some things changed with how you interact with wolves.. I think its not done very well in its current state.. but what does that have to do with random maps and you not being able to post about random maps?